SPRING THEATER SPECIAL; For a Rare Moment, The Play's The Thing

By CAMPBELL ROBERTSON

Published: February 25, 2007

IN a typical Broadway season the impending arrival of ''Coram Boy,'' which opens at the Imperial Theater in a little more than two months, would already be causing murmurs among the small but loyal population of Broadway playgoers. After all, with a cast of 40, this play will undoubtedly be one of the most expensive ever staged on Broadway, as well as the first to open at the Imperial in 30 years. Its earlier run at the National Theater in London, staged by a hot director, won raves. And for heaven's sake it's an ambitious play, not a musical, which means it's a rarity on Broadway. Right?

Not this spring.

Each new Broadway season opens with a cherished ritual. The play is proclaimed dead, killed by -- pick one or more -- the musical, the tourists, the unions, the cost of advertising or the general decline of American culture. And those few plays that somehow make it through are inevitably burdened with caveats: That one's British, so it doesn't really count. That one got off the ground only because of that famous actress in the lead. That one's just a revival. And that one is being produced by a nonprofit theater, and that's what they're supposed to be doing.

But like the bad guy in a slasher franchise, the Broadway play never seems to stay dead for good. Between January and June there will be 12 plays opening on Broadway (counting ''Salvage,'' the third installment of Tom Stoppard's ''Coast of Utopia,'' which opened last weekend). What is more surprising, nine of them are being produced commercially, and almost all have directors with pedigrees.

By contrast three, maybe four, commercially produced musicals are scheduled.

So what are we witnessing? A renaissance of the Broadway play?

Alas, no. But we are seeing something remarkable: a quirk of timing, a precious pocket of breathing space between musical-heavy seasons that happens to coincide with a scheduling hole for busy British directors. For those who like their words unsung, it's a beautiful thing.

''I think you have to nod your head to say that we have some alternatives this year,'' said Emanuel Azenberg, a Broadway producer who often bewails the state of the play on Broadway. ''I don't know that it's encouraging,'' he added. ''But it's unlike previous years.''

With more and more musicals taking over Broadway, even moving into the smaller theaters, plays have often served mainly as filler, a way to keep the rent paid for theaters that are waiting for the lucrative musical to move in. This spring those in-between time slots have lined up, and the result is a dramatic constellation. Of the nine commercially produced plays, seven are limited engagements.

The largesse may be a liability for some producers. Those who in any other season might have had the middle- or highbrow play with the superb director are suddenly standing in a crowd.

''You have good intentions of how you will actually line things up, trying to align them like a train schedule,'' said Bob Boyett, a producer of ''Coram Boy'' and four other plays opening this spring. In the end, he added, it doesn't always work that way.

First, the asterisks. Three of the plays are appearing at nonprofit theaters. Four were recent hits on the West End in London and are either transferring as a whole or being staged by the same directors. (Five of the directors with plays this spring are American.) And half are revivals: Brian Friel's ''Translations'' was first produced Off Broadway in 1981 at the Manhattan Theater Club, which is producing it now; Craig Lucas's romance ''Prelude to a Kiss,'' in previews at the Roundabout Theater Company's American Airlines Theater, first played on Broadway in 1990; Eugene O'Neill's ''Moon for the Misbegotten,'' a transfer from Kevin Spacey's Old Vic in London, has been seen on Broadway four times previously, most recently seven years ago; Eric Bogosian's ''Talk Radio'' was a hit at the Public Theater in 1987; ''Inherit the Wind'' has been on Broadway twice before; and R. C. Sherriff's World War I drama, ''Journey's End,'' has also been on Broadway before, albeit in 1930.

That still leaves six straight plays making their New York debuts, three by American authors: ''Radio Golf,'' the last of August Wilson's 10-part play cycle; ''Deuce,'' by Terrence McNally; and ''The Year of Magical Thinking,'' Joan Didion's stage adaptation of her 2005 memoir. The other three -- ''Coram Boy,'' ''Frost/ Nixon'' and ''Salvage'' -- are by British authors but have not been seen here.

It's quite a lineup, though given the dreary success rate of plays on Broadway, it's worth asking: Are all of these producers -- and their investors -- a little crazy?

After all, two of the three commercial plays that opened on Broadway in the fall faltered: ''The Little Dog Laughed,'' which had strong reviews, lost money; and ''The Vertical Hour,'' which boasted the star power of Julianne Moore and Bill Nighy, is closing early, though its producers insist it will recoup its investment. Only ''Butley,'' with Nathan Lane, recouped and closed on schedule.